Jaq James

An Australian living in China.

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

I'm an Australia who has lived in China and has been pushing back against the Australian media's misrepresentation of China since 2017. In fact I was one of the first cabs off the rank to do so. But one area I was afraid to examine was Chinese revolutionary history. As an Australian, to consider the topic outside the West's Cold War narrative was to move too far out of the "Overton Window". To have an open and inquisitive mind towards the subject feels like you are open to "ideological contamination" and being "unAustralian".

That changed last week when I travelled in China's Guizhou province. By coincidence, I was two days behind @AndyBxxx's tracks through Guizhou learning about one of the most important events in Chinese revolutionary history - the Zunyi Conference. I will share some photos and some thoughts in this thread...

[榫卯 @fgh999527784452]

就拿我自己的家庭来说。

我的曾祖父死于那场大饥荒，活活饿死。我的祖父小学只读到二年级，就不得不辍学，靠自学成为一名木匠，帮助母亲养活一家老小。

祖父生前曾亲口向我讲述过那个年代的事情。
当时，全国上下急于发展生产力，地方官员为了追求政绩，层层虚报粮食产量。虚假的高产数字最终变成了沉重的征粮任务，农民赖以生存的口粮被大量征走。饥荒发生后，一些地方官员又为了掩盖问题而隐瞒灾情，导致中央无法及时掌握真实情况。等到救济粮终于抵达，许多人早已没能活下来。

这不是历史书上冷冰冰的几行文字，而是我的家族真实经历过的苦难。

所以，我从不认为应该回避毛泽东时代的严重错误。
但我同样认为，把这场历史悲剧的全部责任简单归咎于毛泽东一个人，也不足以解释问题的全貌。它既有最高领导层的错误决策，也有当时政治体制、经济政策、信息传递机制以及地方官僚体系的系统性失灵。

当然，作为当时国家的最高领导人，毛泽东必须为这场灾难承担主要的历史责任。这一点没有必要回避，更不应该被淡化。

但评价历史人物，不能只看其一面。
近代以来，中国经历了长期的战争与列强侵略。毛泽东领导中国共产党建立现代中国，在结束长期战乱、维护国家主权和推动国家工业化方面，具有不可否认的历史地位。

新中国成立后，国家急于摆脱贫穷落后、建立独立的工业体系，这种历史诉求有其现实背景。但发展国家的愿望再迫切，也不能成为错误政策和巨大人道灾难的免责理由。

功绩是功绩，错误是错误。
我们没有必要因为一个人的历史功绩而否认他的错误，也不应该因为他的严重错误，就抹去他在其他历史阶段所发挥的作用。

中国没有选择照搬赫鲁晓夫全面否定斯大林的政治路线。直到今天，毛泽东的画像依然悬挂在天安门城楼上。这既反映了他在中华人民共和国历史中的特殊地位，也体现了中国对自身革命历史的延续性叙事。

但历史评价不应止于纪念，更应包含反思。

那些在饥荒中死去的普通人，那些失去父母、被迫辍学、过早承担家庭责任的孩子，同样是中国历史不可分割的一部分。他们的苦难应当被记住，他们的故事应当被写进历史，他们所经历的悲剧更不应该在后世重演。

我的祖父就是那个时代的亲历者，而我，是听着他的故事长大的一代人。

中国这个民族，近代以来经历了太多苦难，实在经不起一次又一次的折腾。对于我们这一代年轻人而言，最重要的不是陷入无休止的历史人物崇拜或情绪化谩骂，而是认真理解历史、汲取教训，把精力投入国家建设与社会发展。

中国人真正实现普遍温饱，也不过是近几十年的事情。今天的发展成果来之不易，更需要珍惜。

铭记历史，不是为了延续仇恨；正视错误，不是为了否定一切；肯定功绩，也绝不意味着可以遗忘那些逝去的生命。

我希望我们的国家越来越好，也希望后来的中国人，再也不必经历我祖父那一代人的苦难。

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

This is some of the most mature and fair-minded reflection about the Mao-era famines I’ve read.

Those who use the Mao-era disasters to try and incite more chaos in China are truly wicked even if they imagine themselves so pure.

“The Chinese nation, since modern times, has endured too much suffering and truly cannot afford to be tossed about again and again. For our generation of young people, the most important thing is not to fall into endless hero worship of historical figures or emotional vilification, but to earnestly understand history, draw lessons from it, and devote our energy to national construction and social development.”

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

@slknowles I am so late to the fan club!

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

It seems I am so in love with Zhou Enlai that I felt compelled to make a love song about him! Gee wizz!

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

@TrevorJ24567534 no, is it good? got a link?

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

YouTube link:
https://t.co/L1oBKtfdVJ

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

My song about two underground Chinese communists who died for their cause. You will see their photos in many red travel museums in China.

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

@Y20_16ysz I am glad my past work inspired someone. May more people in China defend their nation's reputation effectively.

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

My video on why the South China Sea ruling was legally invalid and why China was right to ignore it...

[Angelo Giuliano 🇨🇭🇮🇹 @angeloinchina]

Kishore Mahbubani tells a story you won't read in Western papers.

Former US ambassador to China Stapleton Roy, fluent in Mandarin, told him that at a meeting with Obama, "maybe 2014", Xi Jinping offered to demilitarize the South China Sea.

"The United States, instead of accepting the offer, rejected the offer. And that's why the militarization began."

What is on record : September 2015, White House Rose Garden, Xi says China "does not intend to pursue militarization" in the Spratlys.
Washington's answer was more patrols, then years of "China lied" headlines.

Mahbubani's other point >
> China is "the world's number one trading power"
> so it has "a greater vested interest in freedom of navigation than the United States"

I have heard the "China will block the sea lanes" line for years. Block its own trade ?

So was there an offer on the table ? And if there was, who walked away ?

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

Sari doesn’t think that Chinese people are real.

At least, they’re not real without the intercessions of civilized angels of democracy like Sari to ensoul them and tell them what they’re really thinking.

The young ppl of China might be way more enthusiastic about Mao than the party, certainly more than Xi, who suffered terribly under the cultural revolution. But there’s no way they organically came to this conclusion on their own.

“The communist party gave them no alternatives”

The poor dears are suffering from false consciousness. They might not be aware, but their buried true selves are yearning to become a real boy like Joshua Wong one day.

Until then you can go ahead and ignore what they say, what they do, how they feel. It’s all inauthentic and fake. Instead, listen to white NGO professionals like Sari who can tell you how the Chinese are yearning to be liberated.

[Angelo Giuliano 🇨🇭🇮🇹 @angeloinchina]

𝗠𝗔𝗢 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗔𝗟 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗢𝗟𝗨𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡: 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗚𝗘𝗗𝗬 𝗢𝗙 𝗔 𝗦𝗨𝗖𝗖𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗙𝗨𝗟 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗚𝗬

Most Western writing on the Cultural Revolution stops at "Mao was a monster". That's easy to say, and it explains nothing.

Ken Leong wrote a piece that asks a better question. Why would the man who used the people to win a revolution then turn those same people loose on the state he had built himself?

I mostly agree with his answer. Mao was outgunned and outnumbered, and he won by going around power instead of hitting it head on, a bit like water around a rock. After 1949 he was the rock. When he feared the Party was turning into a new privileged elite, he went back to the method he trusted most, which was mobilising the people against the bureaucracy.

In my view it was at its root an attempt to shake up an old and corrupt system. The cost was real, though, and I don't brush it aside.

It's also one of the most divisive topics in China, and I write about it humbly.

But I don't think the story ended in 1976. Deng kept the foundation and dropped the chaos. Today China debates inside the system, reaches consensus, and puts engineers in charge who test policies before rolling them out. The revolution didn't stop, it just got pragmatic.

People in the West love to say strongmen never learn. China did.

My full take, inspired by Ken Leong's article:
https://t.co/EihmsCkkpc

Be informed, not entertained.

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

@RnaudBertrand Finally some in the pro-China camp speaking with nuance about Mao. The way the Chinese state media staff have been going on about him this week has been over the top!

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

I know a lot of people in the West are baffled by the Mbappé-Mao storm in China - which in itself shows that Mbappé's ignorance doesn't come out of nowhere...

To understand it, here's the best analogy I could think of: imagine the biggest Chinese star in the NBA, with sponsorship deals all over the US. One day he's asked for his favorite meme of himself. He giggles: "the one where they put my face on some guy, I think he was an American slave owner." When the "some guy" in question is George Washington.

Whatever you think of the label, you know exactly how that would land in the US: an ungrateful foreigner getting rich off Americans, laughing at the country's founding father in an offensive way - at least to a big share of the population - without even knowing his name.

A founding father is the story a nation tells itself about where it comes from. Laugh at him as a foreigner while cashing in on that nation's consumers, and that's not going to go well in any country.

The label is also extremely un-nuanced: yes, all important historical figures have their share of darkness and Washington and Mao are no exception.

China actually recognizes this: the official line is that he was "70% right and 30% wrong," and the Party's 1981 resolution condemned how his "personal arbitrariness gradually undermined democratic centralism in Party life and the personality cult grew graver and graver" (https://t.co/gH2rs1FZqW)

Same for Washington: it's officially acknowledged too. Or at least it was until this year: in January, the National Park Service tore down an exhibit in Philadelphia about the people Washington enslaved there, under a Trump executive order targeting content that "inappropriately disparage[s]" Americans (https://t.co/MRLTnnllfq). Which goes to show China isn't uniquely touchy about its founding father...

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

@PlumPoplar sorry, i should have chosen my words more carefully

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

It is said that Deng Xiaoping was purged from the Chinese Communist Party three times. This is my song about one of those purges.

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

@NuryVittachi You have no idea how much I want that!

[Carl Zha @CarlZha]

Best Taiping Rebellion movie but only the uncut version

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

YouTube link: https://t.co/QDOJSfZ3x9

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

Want to understand China today? Then you need to understand the stories the Chinese learn growing up. Here is one of them...

[Nury Vittachi @NuryVittachi]

In 1975, US Christian nationalist Jack Chick warned the world that China was planning to take over Asia, including Australia. Most people in that generation knew this was fearmongering rubbish. Today, 50+ years later, the Australian mainstream media is doing the exact same trick

[Jaq James @JaqRedTravels]

YouTube link: https://t.co/L17uJalhFk